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Guitar Center may be on to something. My 17 year-old son goes to their Hollywood, CA store at least once or twice a month. When my son walks in, they give him a guitar pick and he goes and picks out an axe and plays it. He says sometimes he's there for an hour or two. He says lots of other teenage musicians are there doing the same thing. He says it's mostly adult customers are there playing the instruments. Over the years he's bought pedals, microphones, strings and lots of accessories ...but never a major purchase. He has his eye on a $3k-$4k Gretsch guitar, and he's been saving his money for it. He says he's gone and picked out a $5k axe, plug it into an amp and start playing. He says they have about 30 amps on the floor for customers to use to plug into and play. If you've ever known any guitarists, none of them ever own just one guitar, most of them own several. I believe Guitar Center is building a huge base of future loyal customers.
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